16 April 2006

15 April 2006

"The Total Eclipse of Florida

Turnaround, Every now and then I get out among the mangrove islands,a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms.They stand on the sand-bars drying their damp gold wings.Turnaround, Every now and then I get to an un-lit evening,a little bit angry and I know I've got to get out and cry.Enormous turtles, helpless and mild,turnaround. Every now and then Idie and leave their barnacled shells on the beaches,a little bit terrified but then I see the look in your eyesand their large white skulls with round eye-sockets.Turnaround bright eyes, Every now andI'm twice the size of a man then I fall apart.

And the palm trees clatter in the stiff breezeTurnaround bright eyes, Every now and then Ilike the bills of the pelicans and the tropical rain comes down.then I fall apart,to freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells.And I need you now tonight:Job's Tear, the Chinese Alphabet, the scarce Junonia,and I need you more than ever,parti-colored pectins and Ladies' Ears,and if you'll only hold me tightarranged as on a gray rag of rotted calico,we'll be holding on forever.

the buried Indian Princess's skirtwill only be making it rightwith these the monotonous, endless, sagging coast-linecause we'll never be wrong together.Delicately ornamented,we can take it to the end of the line,Thirty or more buzzards are drifting down, down, down.Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time,over something they have spotted in the swamp.I don't know what to do and I'm always in the darkin circles like stirred-up flakes of sediment.We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks,sinking through water.I really need you tonight,smoke from woods-fires filters fine blue solvents.Forever's gonna start tonight,on stumps and dead trees the charring is like black velvet.

Forever's gonna start tonight--the mosquitoes,once upon a time I was falling in love,hunting to the tune of their ferocious obbligatos,But now I'm only falling apart.

After dark, the fireflies map the heavens in the marsh.There's nothing I can dountil the moon rises.A total eclipse of the heart.Cold white, not bright, the moonlight is coarse-meshed,Once upon a time there was light in my lifeand the careless, corrupt state is all black specks.Now there's only love in the dark,too far apart, and ugly whites; the poorest.Nothing I can say post-card of itself.A total eclipse of the heartAfter dark, the pools seem to have slipped away."